Hanoi Hotel
by rockmysocks456
Summary: Woods survived. Now he's at the Vietnamese concentration camp, Hỏa Lò. Will he be rescued? Sorry, suckish summary. Just read. And review.
1. Chapter 1

_*If you really want to know what the Vietnamese people are saying you can check Google Translate, that's where I got it from, I don't speak Vietnamese. **READ AND REVIEW!**_"WOODS!"

* * *

Frank Woods heard the scream of his fellow soldier and friend, Alex Mason.

As Woods felt his body crash through the glass, tackling a particularly strong bastard, Kravchenko to be exact, who had almost just killed Mazon. He reflected as he was falling as if in slow motion, perhaps this was how he wanted it to be. He wanted to die in battle rather than live on as the guy who _didn't_ save Alex Mason.

He heard the familiar crack and unusually loud explosion of Kravchenko's grenade. It was lucky that he had pushed Kravchenko so far away from him. Otherwise... he wouldn't have made it.

He felt the pressure of the blow send him flying through the air, embers burning him all over until he tumbled unceremoniously to a skidded stop face first in the dirt. He heard a high pitched ringing beating in his eardrums as a white film flickered over his vision slowly hazing he saw some prick... Vietnamese by the looks of him smile and the last thing he heard before falling into a long unconsciousness was,

"_Hanoi."_

* * *

It could've been hours, maybe even days later that he woke up and groaned. He looked around him and found he was handcuffed... or rather chained to the leg of a table and he saw no point in it, considering he could hardly move.

"Của Mỹ đánh thức. Gửi anh đến để thẩm vấn." Someone said.

That same someone unchained him gruffly and hauled him to his feet. Woods stumbled, barely conscious with this person, knowing he couldn't fight this man if he wanted to, so it was best to just go with it.

He was taken into a dimly lit room and and shoved into a seat. His captor walked around the table in front of him to stand beside another Vietnamese man he hadn't noticed at first.

With a distinct but understandable accent he said, "You are in fact, Sergeant Frank Woods of the U.S. marine corps?"

Woods rubbed his head gingerly and said weakly, "Yes. I am."

"And you have served alongside a Mr. Alex Mason?"

"Yes. I have." Woods said.

"Do you know of his current whereabouts?"

Several agonized shrieks broke the unsteady silence but the Vietnamese ignored it. As though it were a normal part of their day...

Woods sighed frustrated, "No. I don't. Because unfortunately, I don't even know what goddamn day it is!"

"It is Febuary 22, Sergeant Woods, you've been unconscious for three days."

Woods contemplated this.

"While _you're_ still answering things for _me,_ where the fuck am I?"

"Hỏa Lò, Mr. Woods."

"_Hỏa Lò... _I'm at the fucking Hanoi Hilton?"

"Yes, and you will answer our questions or face consequence."

He said this severely and the muscular man standing beside him wrapped his fingers tightly around his knife which was strapped on his belt.

"FUCK YOU." Woods roared.

Impatiently the stronger man pulled out the knife and stabbed it violently into Woods' thigh, causing him to scream in agony as it was wrenched out.

His breathing became labored as he fought the urge to cry out.

"What the hell do you want from me?" He demanded.

"We want to find Alex Mason!"

"I. DON'T. KNOW. WHERE. HE. IS."

"Hãy thử và có được anh ta để nói chuyện với a. .. thể chất kích thích và nếu anh ta không nói chuyện ... Độc giam." Woods' interrogator said to the stronger man.

"Hãy đi con hoang của Mỹ."

* * *

Woods was dragged carelessly into another room where he found himself facing a group of muscular Vietnamese guards. They cracked their knuckles menacingly and Woods spit at them.

Every inch of his being was being kicked, punched, beaten, and just generally put through much pain. He'd endured pain before, he was a marine seargent for God's sakes! He'd dealt with beatings before when he'd been taken prisoner before, but he had to admit it had never been at a concentration camp where the beatings were at least five times worse.

He struggled to remain conscious as his vision blurred and darkened. It took all of the gears in his stategic mind to start turning in order for him to formulate a plan elaborate enough to get him out of _this._

Step one. Pretend to be unconscious until they let up a bit.

Woods let out a convincing groan and his head hit the ground, his eyes rolling back.

Step one, check.

Step two, kick one the biggest one in the chest. Hard.

Check.

Step three, get his gun.

A few punches were thrown and he had the weapon. They were dead and he had a bleeding bullet wound in his shoulder. He grabbed a radio from one of the guards and winced as he applied a bit more pressure to his wound to staunch the bleeding. It hurt. He ignored this the best he could and knowing someone had heard the gunfire and struggle he moved on to step four.

Jump out the fucking window.

He did so, unaware he was on the second floor, he landed on his feet stealthily, though it hurt quite alot. From that point, he moved on to the next step.

Step five. Run like hell.

Now, this may not seem like a very elaborate plan, but that's because it isn't finished yet.

Step six, try and contact U.S. troops with the radio.

"This is Seargent Frank Woods of the U.S. marine corps, if anyone's listening, I'm at the Hỏa Lò, and..Fuck."

One of the guards had cracked the butt of his gun over Woods' head and he was unconscious. Again.

Step seven. Get recaptured.

If his plan succeeded, he'd have most, if not all of the prisoners out of there.

He prayed for the first time in years. Prayed for a fucking miracle.


	2. Chapter 2

_* I'm aware that according to the message recieved from "X" in the game, they discovered Woods' whereabouts in 1978, but that's ten years after they kill Dragovich, so for the story's sake, we're going to ignore that date. Thanks for your time. __**READ AND REVIEW.**_

* * *

It wasn't until Alex Mason returned from their victory taking down Dragovich and deactivating the numbers broadcast, on February 26, that he learned of the distress call from Hỏa Lò. When he was informed _who_ sent said distress signal, he was completely shocked.

"Mason, four days ago we apparently recieved a distress signal from Hỏa Lò, there are some American POW's being held captive there." Hudson informed him, walking into the room.

"Yeah, well are we going to get them or was there something else?" Mason said, confused.

"Well, we actually recieved _several_ signals over the past four days, apparently the first inspired a few other prisoners to try and escape. According to what we heard, quite a number of them were being questioned about where they might find you, Mason, among their many questions about the U.S."

"...Me?" Mason asked, clearly surprised by this.

"Yeah, they're not too thrilled about what you did for the States in the war, and also... I'm not sure if I should tell you this part, Mason, because frankly we don't think a rescue mission would be the best idea at the moment..."

"What?" Mason demanded.

"...The first transmission was from Woods. Frank Woods."

Mason froze. His eyes widened and he slowly took a seat at the table.

"Woods is alive?"

"He seems to be, unless his ghost contacted us via radio." Hudson tried to joke.

He's not very good at jokes.

"And-And a rescue mission... _doesn't seem like the best idea?"_

"At the time being, Mason, we can't just infiltrate a Vietnamese concentration camp in the middle of the war-"

"Those people could be dead by the time the war's over!" Mason retorted, standing up furiously.

"We can't go in there without authorization, and the president's not going to approve-"

"Fuck authorization! I'm going in there, with a team, or without. Woods saved my ass more times than I can count, I have to save him. I owe him at least that."

Hudson sighed.

"Fine. I'll get some of my people to go in there in a week or-"

"I'm going now." Mason said firmly.

"Mason, you know I can't let you do that-"

"If anyone asks, you never told me a thing." Mason mumbled and left.

It was nine hours later that Mason found himself hiding in the brush, his eyes locked on the Hỏa Lò about a mile away from him. It was heavily guarded, and he knew this was suicide. But what else could he do?

He'd gotten through high security before by himself... well at the time he didn't know he was by himself because he was following the instruction of an apparently non-existent Reznov. But he was trying to pull all that behind him now...

Anyways, back to the task at hand.

* * *

It had been five days since Woods had sent out that transmission. He knew it could take years for them to even attempt a rescue mission, and to be honest, he wasn't sure they'd ever come. He knew he'd die here. He was sitting in the cramped, and generally disgusting holding room for the prisoners, it was about 3 AM. He sat near the window, back to the wall, when he heard something his ears were highly trained for.

_Tap, pause, pause. _Morse code. That was the first letter, "W". It continued. _Pause, pause, pause. _"O". _Pause, pause, pause. _"O". _Pause, tap, tap. _"D". _Tap, tap, tap. _"S".

Whoever this was, they just said his name. He tapped back on the glass, not daring to look in case it was a trap.

_Tap, pause, pause. Tap, tap, tap. Pause, pause, pause. _(Who) _Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. _(Is) _Pause. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. _(This).

The response was immediate. This person clearly knew their morse code.

_Pause, pause. Tap, pause. Tap, tap, tap. Pause, pause, pause. Pause, tap. _

Mason.

Woods stood up immediately and saw that familiar face crouched outside the window. Mason, now aware this was Woods whispered through the glass.

"I'm gonna break this, and we're gonna run like hell you got that? It'll set off an alarm and we're gonna have to get out of here as quick as possible."

"Okay. You have an extra gun?" Woods replied.

"M16." Mason said, holding it up with a grin.

"Alright." Woods replied, standing back to allow Mason to break the window with the but of his own gun.

He'd been right, an alarm went off, waking the dozing prisoners and alerting all guards in the area.

"Let's go!" Mason said, throwing him the M16, they started running.

The awoken prisoners, becoming aware of the escape, clambered out the broken window desperately trying to escape, the guards were there in seconds.

"Move, move, move!" Woods yelled to all those following.

It was as they ran that they heard the whipping of a propellor drawing nearer and nearer, louder and louder. A helicopter was coming into view above. It was getting closer, finally making to land a few miles away.

Figuring one of two things, either this was an enemy copter and they could take it, or rescue, Woods pointed it out to Mason and both redirected their course towards it.

Once able to see who it was that had arrived, both men were equally surprised.

"HUDSON!" Mason yelled over the helicopter's loud roar.

"A RESCUE TEAM IS ON THEIR WAY FOR THOSE GUYS, LET'S GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" Hudson informed them.

Mason and Woods climbed on, and once aboard, Woods passed out.


	3. Chapter 3

* _Sorry for the wait, guys! Alright, first off this is going to be a kind of lame ass chapter. Emotions and shit, you know. And even people who LIKE emotional crap will probably be disappointed because I'm not a big fan of feelings therefore making this chapter suckish. My bad. **READ AND REVIEW!**__

* * *

___

"Woods?"

The voice was distant and echoing but real. Real enough for Frank Woods to latch onto it as reality and bring himself to his senses enough to wake the fuck up. He opened his eyes, blinking as he looked around and found himself still in the helicopter, from what he could tell he'd been fixed up by the medic and most likely the reason Mason was waking him up was because he was bored.

"What's up, Mason?" Woods asked in a raspy voice, much like that of someone woken up at three in the morning.

"You okay?"

What a dumbass question.

"I'll be fine... Why'd you wake me up?"

Mason sighed and responded quietly, "Just... Just makin' sure you were okay."

Mason looked away awkwardly and Woods knew why. Woods was always the one looking out for Mason, saving his ass and bossing him around, it was just what he did. And now, Woods being vulnerable like he was now, was strange for the both of them. Woods had never before allowed Mason to see his own weakness.

When Mason had seen how beaten and broken he was when Mason had first arrived in Vietnam...

_"Woods! You look like hammered shit!"_

_"Looks don't count for shit in the jungle."_

When their helicopter had crashed...

_"Woods! You alright?"_

_"I'm fine..."_

Even when they'd both been injured and captured, Woods was hurting so bad, and fought to remain conscious but still he asked, his hard exterior breaking for only a moment,

_"Mason, you with me?"_

He never cared for himself. Since he'd met Mason his job had been to protect him. And now it was the other way around, and it was just plain awkward.

Woods sat up, Mason looking extremely nervous that he might harm himself further, but Woods ignored this. He rubbed his head groggily and surveying Mason he said,

"You look like shit, Mason."

"I appreciate that." Mason said sarcastically.

It was this exchange of two sentences that set the balance right again.

Woods knew he couldn't always protect Mason from everything, and he couldn't always hide his weaknesses.

Especially not from his best friend.


End file.
